In the wake of President Obama's lackluster performance during the first presidential debate, Thursday night's vice-presidential match-up was highly anticipated. Would vice-president Joe Biden be able to stem the Republicans' momentum, or would congressman Paul Ryan pull off another upset, as many wondered?

Early consensus seems to be that there is no consensus. Polls are about split on who fared better in the debate – though one thing is certain, it was a much better show than the first Romney-Obama head to head.

But besides "who won?" we want to know what this debate revealed about the intentions of the candidates, as well as the agenda of the moderator.

In other words: how are the moderators framing the debates? And how are the candidates approaching them?

The VP debate is a special case, however. For one, it is a single match, which means the candidates have to give it all they've got. Since their names aren't at the top of the ticket, vice-presidential candidates also have more "wiggle room" in their debate performances, as Benjamin Knoll put it on the Huffington Post. That means they can more freely act as attack dog, hammering away at ideological differences between their campaigns. They can also play the wingman, giving their running mate a few extra pats on the back.

Framing the debate: moderator Martha Raddatz's questions

ABC's Martha Raddatz was perhaps the biggest winner of the vice-presidential debate, especially in light of Jim Lehrer's much-criticized performance in the first presidential match-up. Raddatz asked a total of 10 primary questions, with many strong follow-ups. She grilled the candidates when they didn't answer directly. She also asked for "specifics" from both candidates often and hammered at Paul Ryan on at least four occasions for failing to give enough detail on his ticket's plans.

The VP debate covered both foreign and domestic policy. Unlike Lehrer, Raddatz did not announce her question topics ahead of time, which may have put the element of surprise on her side. She covered many previously untouched subjects, most heavily foreign policy – which is yet to be covered in a presidential debate – and touched on contentious and often unasked issues like abortion.

Here's how her questions broke down by topic. (We count primary questions only, not follow-ups). #

Candidates face-off: Biden and Ryan's answers

We tracked how Biden and Ryan answered Raddatz's questions. Were they fulfilling their role as "attack dog" – and if so, how did they attack? Who performed better as a "wingman", touting their running mate's credentials?

Both candidates churned out the attacks, as we suspected they would, but their styles couldn't have been more different. Biden seemed to chuckle at his younger opponents naivete – perhaps a little too often. His body language felt grandfatherly and strict. Ryan, meanwhile, was buttoned up and serious, some would say almost robotic. The two were almost evenly matched when it came to attacks on their running mates and campaigns, but it was Biden who went at Ryan's record more often. The vice-president made jabs at his opponent 10 times, while Ryan kept the bulk of his attacks to Obama and the administration, only hitting at the veep twice.

Biden strived to call out his opponent on what he saw as mischaracterizations, perhaps making up for President Obama's meekness in the first debate. And aside from his snarky chuckling, Biden used a few choice words to let Ryan know he disagreed – though they're not the kind you might think. 'Malarkey' was among the vice-president's favorite call-outs of the evening. Remember, we said Biden acted like your grandpa!

As a matter of method, we defined the VPs "attack dog" mode as any time the a candidate made explicit jabs at their opponent's policy or character – or at their opponent's running mate. We counted the number of attacks on their fellow VP hopeful separately from attacks on the opposing presidential candidate. We also attempted to keep attacks clustered – so, if one candidate went on a rant for minutes, but kept to one line of thought, we counted it as one attack. This is, of course, not a perfect science.

Here's how their attacks broke down: #

Biden and Ryan both embraced their wingman role equally, spending a good chunk of their time giving props to their running mates. Biden managed to sneak in roughly 16 references to President Obama's resumé, plans, promises and more, to Ryan's 15 references to the Romney campaign.

We define "wingman" as any time the Biden or Ryan paid homage to their running mates – talking up their plans, referring to their resumés, and giving us promises from the ticket.

Here's how they stacked up.#

We also tracked how often Biden and Ryan referred to themselves, to their partner or to the ticket.

You can see how their approaches break down in the graphic below. Here's a key:

Me: Each "I" first-person reference is counted in this category – except opening and closing thanks back to the debate commission

He: Biden and Ryan's references to their running mates make up this category, including a simple "he" or possessive constructions like "so-and-so's bipartisan efforts".

We: Each "we" or any reference to "me and my running mate" is counted in this category. The candidates sometimes use "we" as short-hand for the American people, but we don't include these in our count. #

Notable moments, laughs and one-liners

Notable moments in from last night's VP debate include Biden's choice to add his own laugh track, "my friend" Paul Ryan, and another "Jack Kennedy" line.

Laugh track: We counted 15 Biden laughs in last night's debate – and several full smiles that were borderline. Here's "chuckles" himself:

Keywords of the night: In another slightly odd choice, Biden referred to Ryan with a somewhat-condescending "my friend" 14 times over the hour and a half debate. Here's a sample:

My friend recently in a speech in Washington said '30%of the American people are takers.'

And another:

Why does my friend cut out the tuition tax credit for them? Why does he go after the childcare?

Ryan had a catchphrase of his own – if we can call it a catchphrase. He reminded us three times of the "unraveling" of Obama's foreign policy.

VP history: In preparation for this big VP match-up, countless media organizations looked back across veep debates past to find the best zingers of our time. According to Businessweek, that moment came in 1988 when Lloyd Bentsen famously slammed Dan Quayle by telling him he was "no Jack Kennedy".

In a historical nod, Biden picked up on another Kennedy reference this time around:

The buzz: gauging Twitter on the debate

After last week's presidential debate, the internet took a collective swipe at Lehrer. During the VP follow-up, it gave Raddatz a collective high-five for her effort to keep the candidates on topic (and their toes). From the beginning she came on strong, demanded specifics, and kept the candidates within their time allotments – a total 180 from how Jim Lehrer handled things. Here are a few samples of what came through the wires tonight:

The other bit of the debate that had everyone foaming at the mouth was vice-president Joe Biden's behavior. As our own Adam Gabbatt explained, while he live-giffed the debate: Biden emoted as Paul Ryan answered. Biden scoffed, laughed and rolled his eyes. Whether or not Biden's strategy worked in his favor is up for debate. Some thought it made him look confident, while others only saw arrogance:

Make the next debate better

What's your take on the VP debate? Use the comment section below to discuss with Guardian readers and reporters. Live blogger Richard Adams will be reading this comment thread, so don't be surprised if some of the discussion here lands back on his liveblog.

We've also teamed up with the Personal Democracy Forum's Good Questions Project, which aims to aggregate examples of good (or bad) questions being asked of the candidates in public. Show your support for the best questions asked last night by tweeting with #GoodQ. Suggest questions for future debates using the same hashtag.

The second presidential debate will take place next Tuesday at 9pm. It will be in town hall-style and "participants will be undecided voters selected by the Gallup Organization", according to the Commission on Presidential Debates.